


light's sacrifice

by marshie_marshmallow



Category: Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (Cartoon)
Genre: Child Death, Rocks Fall Everyone Dies, TTS Gen Week 2021 (Disney), a bunch of other people but those are the ones who like. appear physically., just so we're clear that it's no hold barred on the EVERYONE dies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-14 13:47:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29668200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marshie_marshmallow/pseuds/marshie_marshmallow
Summary: Cassandra doesn't take the Moonstone.She really should have, though.
Relationships: Cassandra & Everyone
Comments: 4
Kudos: 32





	light's sacrifice

**Author's Note:**

> Gen Week Day 7: Free Day
> 
> I just want to be clear, I actually didn't go into gen week thinking I was gonna write this fic. This fic was actually already in the works. I just managed to finish it in time to post today.

**1.**

The Moonstone shines with an eerie blue light, casting shadows over everything. Rapunzel’s hair glows in response as she steps closer. 

_“Go on, take it,”_ something inside Cassandra urges. _“Hurry. It’s_ **_your_ ** _destiny, not hers.”_

But she says, _“No.”_

As much as she’s hurting from recent revelations and months upon months of feeling beaten down by the world and the anger because Rapunzel _maimed_ her and wouldn’t even _apologize_ … The risks of not allowing the Sundrop and Moonstone to reunite are too great. She can not - will not - give in to the part of her that screams to do something selfish for _once_ in her life. Not when the world is at stake.

She keeps her feet planted firmly to the ground where they are. She watches as Rapunzel reaches a hand out towards the Moonstone. The hand closes-

There’s a bright flash of light and a powerful force knocks Cassandra to the ground. When she blinks her eyes open again, she sees Eugene pulling himself to his feet. The black rocks that had coated the sides of the chamber are gone and, she’s willing to guess, so are all the other ones across the world. At the center of the room is a glowing blue and yellow stone with colors that shift beautifully.

“Raps, do you see-” She pauses, glancing around. “Raps?”

“Blondie?” Eugene asks, pulling himself to his feet and turning every which way.

“Rapunzel?”

“Sunshine?”

There’s nowhere to hide in the room anymore. Where could Rapunzel be unless-

“No…” she says as she covers her mouth with her hands. Not like this. She never wanted this.

Eugene, too, realizes what’s happened and sinks to his knees.

“She’s gone.”

**2.**

When they first got home to find that the Separatists of Saporia had, with the help of Varian, taken over the kingdom and erased the memories of the King and Queen, Cassandra hadn’t been sure if she wanted to throttle Andrew or Varian more.

Now, standing on a falling airship full of explosive chemicals that could easily destroy the city, she knows that the correct answer is Andrew.

“What?” she screams as she clings to the ship’s railing.

“The Quirinian!” Varian shouts back. “We can use it to gain altitude but… but one of us is going to have to stay on the ship.”

“The ship that’s about to _explode_?”

He lets out a breath. “I’ll do it. This is my mess. I need to be the one to clean it up.”

He'd die if he did that. He's, what, sixteen? Too young to die.

 _He's only sixteen._ Cass had gotten so caught up in the concept of him being an enemy, she forgot he was a _child._

“Varian, you can’t do this!” she protests.

“There’s no other option! It’s not like I have anything left anyway! You’ve got people waiting for you! You still have things left to lose! I don't! At least I can die doing something _right_ for once!”

Maybe he’s an idiot or annoying at times. Maybe he’s a traitor to the kingdom. Maybe he tried to kill her once. Maybe this stupid plan to erase everyone’s memories of his crimes was an incredibly childish and selfish way of dealing with the situation.

But, skies above, she doesn’t want the kid to _die_.

She’s about to open her mouth, to tell him that there _must_ be another way, but he doesn’t let her have that chance. There’s the _‘pop’_ of one of his alchemy balls and then she’s trapped in a bubble.

“Goodbye, Cassie.”

As she floats away, Varian smiles at her. It’s wide and bright enough to almost look like the smiles he once gave as an innocent child trying to impress her. The tears in his eyes, though, mark the difference. He’s just putting on a brave face before he dies.

Once she’s close enough to a roof, she pops the bubble with her dagger and comes to a landing. Without even stopping to catch her breath, she jumps to the ground and starts chasing the ship through the streets.

“Varian!” she screams, even though she knows he’s too far away to hear.

It’s only minutes later - but it feels like hours - when the steadily-rising ship bursts into flames. She stops in her tracks and watches the fire eat away at the ship, swearing that she could almost sense the rising pressure of the coming explosion. When it arrives, she closes her eyes to shield them from the light. After a moment, she reopens them and stares up at where the green-colored smoke is spreading through the sky.

Then she drops to her knees.

**3.**

Cassandra sighs as she glances over the belongings that Eugene has packed up. He hasn’t even yet changed out of his funeral attire. Though, neither has she.

The funeral had been a grand affair, even if there wasn’t a body to bury in the tomb. Never in her life had the capital city, so full of color and life, felt so gray and dead. She‘s fairly certain she could count on one hand those who weren’t wearing black. It felt like the entire kingdom had come out to mourn the loss of their beloved princess, not even two full years after she had been returned to them.

Unlike Varian, whose burnt and mangled body Cassandra had carried back to Old Corona and buried herself.

“I could really use your help,” she says. With no princess to step up as the acting queen, there had been no choice but to take drastic measures. A coup, if she was to be entirely honest. Frederic and Arianna, in their current states, could not be trusted to rule.

“You’ll still have Lance.”

She sighs. That’s true. Lance had agreed to stick around and help her. Still, Eugene leaving just doesn’t feel _right._ “You know you still have a home here. Nobody’s going to kick you out just because-”

“I can’t stay, Cass.” He takes a deep breath. “Everywhere I turn, I see something that reminds me of her and I just can’t- I can’t handle it.”

She takes his hands and watches as his eyes subconsciously dart to her right hand, which is still burnt to a crisp underneath her gloves. She chooses to pretend that she didn’t see it. “Any time you want to come back, you can.”

“I’ll consider it.”

She moves closer and wraps her arms around him in a hug that is quickly returned. She doesn’t know how long they stand there for - certainly for far longer than she usually tolerated hugs - but it certainly doesn’t seem long enough. Maybe if she never let go, she could keep him here forever instead of losing someone else. Because if she lets him go, she’s sure she’ll never see him again.

**4.**

Cassandra doesn’t know the first thing about ruling. She was raised to be a maid or a fighter. She had often - especially in recent months - dreamed of being able to wield the same power and have the same level of attention on her as a member of the ruling family. This, though? She’s barely keeping it together with the demands.

The mixed reception to her becoming de facto ruler until Frederic’s memories were recovered doesn’t help. Not everyone is willing to accept her as the leader. She’s not sure how _she_ feels about her being the leader.

Rapunzel would know what to do.

Rapunzel wouldn’t let a werewolf hunter roam freely around her kingdom.

She’d have empathy for the person afflicted by the curse. Therefore Cass, who can only seem to rule in terms of what she thinks Rapunzel would do, had made an effort to stop Creighton. But there’s so much to do all the time and she’s stretched so _thin_. Her effort wasn’t enough.

And as an anguished scream rips out of Angry’s mouth, all Cass can think is that this is somehow her fault. She has Stan and Pete arrest Creighton for murder but it’s too little, too late. The damage is already done.

They bury the body next to Varian’s, deep in the forest. His grave had to be out here, to prevent it being vandalized by a populace that still hates him despite his sacrifice. Angry tells them, through sobs, that her sister always preferred the woods to civilization. She wouldn’t want to be buried in a public graveyard. Now the two of them - both dead far too young - can keep each other company.

Cass bites her lip as she realizes this had only been her first meeting with the girls.

**5.**

The house by the Corona wall is sealed off. They can’t demolish it for the same reason that they can’t let anyone move in. People had asked for the right to at least strip the house’s interior of anything usable but that felt like grave robbing to Cass. After all, this whole building was now a tomb.

She presses her left hand, bare of its glove, against the amber. It feels warm to the touch. It’s unbreakable, like the rocks it had sprung from. Unlike the rocks, it didn’t vanish when the Sundrop and Moonstone merged. They couldn’t even move it elsewhere.

She wonders if he’s somehow still alive in there.

Frankly, she hopes he isn’t.

They put another grave next to the others. This one is empty.

**6.**

It’s been months. Frederic and Arianna don’t seem to be any closer to recovering in their memories and the nobles are growing restless. Keeping the king and queen out of the public eye is easier said than done and people want to know who is supposed to lead their nation. Cass has considered sending someone out with that balloon to find the apothecary cart with the remedy for the Wand of Oblivium but it’s too risky and she’s not sure of the exact location.

Were Varian alive, they could have leveraged his position as Frederic’s ‘advisor’ to rule in a more discreet manner than this. Were _Rapunzel_ alive, she could have formally declared her parents unfit to rule and taken over. Even just Eugene sticking around probably could have helped. But none of them are there and if they can’t safely get Frederic back on the throne soon, there’s going to be an uprising.

King Trevor comes by for an unannounced visit and gets on Cassandra’s last nerve. He’s clearly there to try to win over Arianna by taking advantage of her amnesia and she can’t _stop_ him. He’s a king and she’s… she doesn’t know what she is or where she stands in the world anymore. But she’s no king.

The ship carrying Trevor and Arianna sinks while they’re at sea. The restless nobles break out in a clamor. Some blame Equis for the death, as their king had put her in danger. Some blame Cassandra and her associates. Trevor’s cousin, the new king of Equis, blames Corona for the ship sinking, as nonsensical as that is. What was always a fraught relationship between countries turns into all-out hostility.

Things have reached a boiling point and it looks like war looms on the horizon.

And to add insult to injury, they find that Trevor had swiped the Journal of Herz der Sonne and taken it with him to the seafloor.

**7.**

There’s a revolt. A number of nobles storming the castle, seeking to either put Frederic back on the throne… or one of their own. Cassandra and her friends are unfit to lead the country when war with Equis is clearly coming. It would have been difficult enough to push back even without some of the guard taking the other side.

Cass doesn’t remember much except for escaping through the tunnels with no map to guide her. Lance said he’d catch up to her once he found Angry. Once she’s nearly out, she sits down by a wall and waits for them.

Angry arrives alone.

**8.**

She doesn’t know why she thought the old cottage would be a good hideout.

Angry sleeps on the bed that used to be hers, in her early years. Meanwhile, Cass searches the house with a lantern. With a bit of prodding, she finds a secret passage into some kind of abandoned mine. Inside is a room filled with strange elixirs, notes on the Sundrop and Moonstone, and so. Many. Mirrors.

She touches one and is greeted with the image of her birth mother. Testing a few more shows that they’re all the same thing. Gothel talking about the compliments she’s received, occasionally pausing to snap at the four-year-old Cass in the background.

It fills her with rage. At her mother, Rapunzel, the Sundrop, the Moonstone, the world, _herself_.

All that anger. All that rage. She thought she was doing the world a favor by not giving in. Not claiming the Moonstone for herself.

Who would have thought it was the other way around?

She screams and starts pulling mirrors off the wall, smashing them. Broken glass crunches under her boots. She pulls elixirs off the shelf and smashes them on the floor too, getting unknown liquids everywhere. She rips papers down and shreds them apart. Once everything in the room is broken, she gives one final yell and throws the lantern against the ground.

Whatever was in those vials was flammable. Within seconds, the room is choked in flames and her exit lies on the other side. She could run through the fire. It’d be painful but she’d survive. She had, after all, suffered much worse burns.

But she can’t seem to get her feet to move. There’s nothing left, after all. Just her.

So she curls up and waits for the end.

**0.**

The plan didn’t work as anticipated. For whatever reason, Cassandra hadn’t taken the Moonstone, despite her nudging. Now both Moonstone _and_ Sundrop are gone, forever out of her reach.

But there’s other kinds of power in the world and she is nothing if not adaptable. So it is time to make new plans.

The girl in front of her is tiny and broken, desperately seeking comfort in the world after losing everyone she’d loved. Red face paint is smudged on her cheeks and black hair is wild and shaggy around her shoulders. She clutches her leaf necklace in a death grip as she speaks.

“Who are you?”

The question is met with a smile. “A friend. Or at least I’d like to be.”


End file.
